


Lapis Nicobar

by wheel_pen



Series: Miscellaneous X-Men First Class Stories [5]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Slavery, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24987319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: Unfinished. Inspired by X-Men First Class, Charles Xavier is a slave named Lapis at a hotel in a fictional country called Nicobar, which has slavery but also modern amenities. (I have a Sherlock series also set here.) The hotel (and the slave) is frequented by Erik Lehnsherr, the illegitimate son of a wealthy man, who lived in poverty for years before his half-sister Emma Frost claimed him and gave him his share of the family estate. Erik travels a lot for his engineering job and prefers to stay at this hotel when in town, rather than the Frost compound. However, the severe income inequality in this country can result in riots, as is happening in this scene.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: Miscellaneous X-Men First Class Stories [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/516607
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Lapis Nicobar

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

Lapis remembered a riot when he was a child; it had been frightening and confusing, but his mother had kept him safe in the slave quarters and he hadn’t realized what was really going on. Now he understood better, as he watched the workers cover the front doors and windows with fencing and shields—barricading themselves and their guests against the raging hordes without, who were tearing the city apart.

He spun away, trying Erik’s mobile again. He hadn’t been answering but that could mean anything. The only thing Lapis was certain of was that Erik wasn’t in the hotel, and that made it very likely he was in danger. Erik had been downtown at the planning meeting for his new project, but that building was small and old, and they would have little in the way of defenses. Would another hotel or office building take him in? Well-dressed and calm, probably—but they wouldn’t know him, they might not risk it—

Lapis made a decision. It was foolish and reckless, which he usually wasn’t, but he found himself hurrying down to the basement even as he tried to talk himself out of it. “Chatya!” he called to the slave who was sealing up a back door from the parking garage. “Wait! Let me out.”

“Are you crazy, kid?” the slave demanded, continuing with his task.

“No, wait!” Lapis insisted. “I have to look for Erik—Mr. Lehnsherr—he was downtown—”

Chatya rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid, kid,” he advised bluntly. “It’s a mess out there—” He saw Lapis’s pleading eyes and softened his tone a little. “Mr. Lehnsherr’ll be fine, those rich types always look after their own—”

“Please, Chatya!” Lapis begged, trying to project sincerity without spilling into hysteria. “I know how to get around, I can use the tunnels, it’s only a few blocks! We’ll find someplace to hide downtown if we can’t get back here, I’ll call you—”

It wasn’t that Chatya thought this was a good idea, or that he was swayed by Lapis’s passion. But Lapis knew very well how to make a pest of himself, preventing the other man from doing his job until he finally agreed. “Okay, fine,” he conceded, unbarring the door. “But I never saw you down here, got it?”

Lapis gave him a brilliant smile, which some people paid a lot of money to see. “Thanks, Chatya!”

“Get out, go,” the slave encouraged reluctantly, and Lapis darted out into the deserted back lot.

He could hear the noise of sirens not very far away, a low murmur like a roaring crowd punctuated by pops—gunfire or even small, homemade bombs. He avoided the streets, racing through the back alleys and dodging into a doorway whenever he saw anyone. If he’d had more time to think he would’ve changed clothes—the quality would give him away to anyone he met, so he didn’t shy away from any chance to dirty them a bit. A slave would not be spared by the angry mobs he hid from; he was a plaything of the rich, the enemy, and destroying their playthings was a common act of defiance.

With a shouting mob blocking his path Lapis found an entrance to the tunnels under the city and lowered himself into the dank, shadowy passage, keeping himself oriented to the streets above. Some people had already taken refuge down there, but that meant they were not inclined to fight and they gave Lapis no trouble as he jogged by.

Finding another ladder he climbed in and peeked carefully out of the hatch. He was in an alley, but the police and rioters were clashing only a few yards away, and Lapis joined the people racing down the alley to escape, coming out on the block he wanted. Despite just evading one set of police, the enraged populace began bashing at unboarded windows and beating on cars, ripping up anything they could carry, like tables from an outdoor café and flower plantings. A flower pot was heaved through a window near Lapis and he ducked and covered his head as both shattered. He knew where Erik had gone for his meeting, but how was he going to get there in this mess?

“Lapis!” The slave turned and saw that, miraculously, Erik was heading towards him, and he ran to embrace the older man, his heart pounding with a sudden emotion he’d managed so far to keep at bay.

“Erik,” he breathed, gripping him tightly.

“What are you—” Shrapnel flew past them and Erik dragged Lapis to an alley, a doorway. “What are you doing here, you should be at the hotel—” Neither had loosened his grip on the other.

“I had to find you—” Lapis started to explain, but the words stuck in his throat. It sounded stupid all of a sudden, foolish in a visceral way that he hadn’t felt before, and he couldn’t meet Erik’s eyes. “I was worried about you—” He didn’t know what else to say.

Erik suddenly embraced him, fierce and slightly suffocating, but Lapis clutched at him in return. Erik pressed a hard kiss to the side of his head but then pushed him back with determination. They could not linger here.

“How did you get here?” Erik asked him, all business now.

“There’s tunnels under the city—”

“Right, let’s go,” Erik agreed, and looked both ways before darting out of the alley.

He found the nearest tunnel entrance before Lapis pointed it out. “Oh, you knew about these,” Lapis realized dully, climbing down after Erik. “From when you were younger—” Erik hadn’t always been a wealthy person—he had started off like the rioters, poor and desperate, but it turned out his father was someone wealthy, and his half-sister had the decency to include him in the estate when their father died. Lapis did not expect his own wealthy half-siblings to do the same—an unacknowledged slave child was not usually considered worth bothering about.

“Which way to the hotel?” Erik prompted Lapis, who began to lead him quickly through the dim space, which had become more crowded. More people taking refuge, but also miscreants who wanted to get to new areas faster and without detection—the police would soon seal the tunnel entrances, trapping people underground until they could find a more obscure way out. Lapis picked up his pace, clinging to Erik’s hand.

“I’m okay, keep going,” Erik assured him steadily.

“Here,” Lapis determined, and started climbing back up a ladder. He lifted the grate carefully; the alley had more activity than when he’d left, police vehicles rolling down the main street driving people aside. “Erik!” he hissed urgently, even though the man was going as fast as he could.

“Go, go!” Erik urged, looking back over his shoulder. The police could start sweeping the alley any moment and were likely to subdue anyone they saw.

They had to take a longer route back to the hotel, avoiding scenes of conflict and residents twitchy about those using the riots as cover to loot their neighbors. Erik grabbed Lapis bodily at one point and jerked him back into a stairwell before he could charge headlong into a rampaging crowd, shielding the slave from debris even as Lapis clung to him, terror threatening to steal his sense of direction. He knew the streets and tunnels, he knew he could get to where Erik was and back; but the mere _navigation_ was not the difficult part, not in chaos like this.

“Come on,” Erik encouraged, when the street was calmer. “We’re coming up behind it, aren’t we?”

“Yes, across the lot, there’s a door to the parking garage,” Lapis told him breathlessly. _If_ Chatya was waiting for him—Lapis had not asked him to, not wanting to put that responsibility on him.

The area behind the hotel seemed relatively quiet, no one else around. It was all industrial concrete and not very interesting or tempting. Lapis thumped on the thick door, wanting to attract attention inside but not out. “Chatya!” he called, while Erik kept a lookout. “It’s me!” There was no answer but he was afraid to try again, hearing shouts just around the corner. Instead he tried his phone, hoping the cell towers hadn’t gone down yet. “We’re at the same door,” he said, when Chatya picked up. “Can you let us in?”

“Be right there!” he was promised, and then they just had to wait tensely, pressed against the cold concrete wall.

“How do you know the streets and tunnels?” Erik asked, rubbing Lapis’s arms. They had barely stopped touching since they’d found each other. “I thought they didn’t let you out of the hotel.”

Lapis recognized his conversational question was meant to calm the slave’s nerves. “Well, I wasn’t _supposed_ to leave,” he admitted, trying to be cheeky but he feared it failed. “But I wanted to see things, know how to get places.” He had friends all over the city, friends it only now occurred to him to worry about, he realized with sudden guilt. But he couldn’t have brought them here—maybe one or two could’ve been hidden, but the hotel supervisors would not tolerate those who didn’t belong.

“You did really well,” Erik praised him. “I don’t know this part of the city, I grew up in Violet Vale.” That was another impoverished neighborhood, to the west. “My mother and I even lived in the tunnels for a while when we couldn’t pay the rent.” He said this so easily now, but Lapis knew how proud Erik was; it must have been infuriating, and galling, to learn that his father could’ve fixed everything if he’d wanted.

“Were you at that office?” Lapis asked him. “When things started…”

“No, I was at a café having lunch,” Erik replied, turning at a noise. It was only a stray bottle, however. He stayed vigilant, never letting his attention stray from their surroundings. “I saw you from inside the restaurant and got out right before the owner boarded it up. I can’t believe you came looking for me!” he added, his tone severe. “You should’ve stayed here where it was safe.” The chiding was not very effective, however, as he hugged Lapis to him tightly.

“I had to make sure you were okay,” Lapis insisted, his voice catching at the thought of Erik _not_ being okay. This was dangerous territory, and not just because of the riot.

A thump from the inside of the door started them both, and Erik thumped back. After a moment the heavy door creaked open, revealing the interior to Erik first, and he dragged Lapis around and pushed him inside before following.

Chatya was waiting. “Hello, Mr. Lehnsherr,” he greeted, ridiculously polite under the circumstances. “Glad you made it back safely, sir!”

“Thank you,” Erik grunted, helping him to close and reseal the door. “I had help.” Lapis took his hand as soon as it was free, still rattled by what he’d seen outside.

“You should check in at the front desk, sir,” Chatya advised, guiding them to the elevator. “Then Management suggests all guests remain in their rooms.”

“I’m keeping him with me,” Erik replied matter-of-factly, indicating Lapis, which made the slave beam in what he feared was a foolish way.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” Chatya agreed, putting them in the elevator.

“Thank you, Chatya!” Lapis called as the doors shut between them.

“They must be confident the power won’t go off,” Erik commented, gazing around the elevator dubiously.

“We have a backup generator,” Lapis pointed out helpfully. With a building this tall you couldn’t expect guests to _walk_ up to their rooms, even in extreme circumstances. They stepped out at the lobby, which had the half-deserted feel of a place where no one had anything to do but wait tensely. Lapis grabbed Erik’s arm suddenly. “Could you _not_ tell them I left to get you?” he asked in a low tone, seeing one of the supervisors nearby. Erik raised an eyebrow as if to say he _shouldn’t_ have left, but Lapis trusted him to not get the slave in trouble.

“Mr. Lehnsherr!” the manager exclaimed with some excitement as Erik approached the desk. “I thought you were out, sir! I’m so glad you’re safe—” Erik was a very good customer.

“So am I,” Erik agreed, signing in. “Were you here for the ’95 Tire Riots? It reminds me of that.” The manager paled visibly. “I’ll keep Lapis with me, if that’s alright?”

“Yes, of course, sir,” the manager replied quickly, making a notation. “We just need to know where everyone is, for safety reasons. You’ll be in your room, sir?”

“Yes,” Erik agreed. “Should we take the stairs?”

“Oh, no, no, Mr. Lehnsherr, take the elevator,” the manager insisted obsequiously. “It will be alright.”

“Okay. Let me know if you need any help,” Erik offered. “If you have any structural issues. Or electrical.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lehnsherr, you’re very kind,” the manager insisted. It was obvious he wanted them to get squared away in Erik’s room so he could stop thinking about them. “I’m sure this will all be over soon.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Erik replied discouragingly, and walked away with Lapis in hand.

The elevator ride grew increasingly broody, and Lapis tried to distract Erik with chatter about what he’d been doing when he first heard something was wrong. He didn’t think it was working, though.

“And at what point did you think, ‘That sounds like something I want to run through, to find Erik’?” Erik asked sharply, leading Lapis down the hall to his room. “Do you realize how easily you could have been hurt? Hurt, and then just left on the street, or in some overcrowded hospital—” He turned away from the slave to bolt the door firmly behind them. The room was dark from the barrier draped over the outside of the windows, to protect against damage even this high up.

Lapis threw his arms around the other man. “Erik, I was just so scared for you, I couldn’t think,” he confessed. The dark made it easier to admit these things. “I just needed you to be safe—”

“Okay, okay,” Erik agreed, more gently, rubbing Lapis’s back. “Okay, we’re both fine, so—”

“I’m sorry,” Lapis told him, because he knew he should be sorry, even though he wasn’t really at all.

“It’s okay,” Erik soothed, kissing Lapis’s temple. “I just—when I saw you out there on the street, when I thought you were safe—”

They stayed like that for a long moment, just embracing in the dark. Lapis allowed himself the fantasy that Erik cared about him, _really_ cared—not just in a polite way, not just in a human way, but really cared about Lapis as an individual, the way Lapis feared he was beginning to care about _him_. Someone Erik thought of when he wasn’t around, even when Erik was out of the country.

Then Erik sighed and flipped on a light. “Come on, let’s lie down,” he suggested, drawing Lapis towards the bed. “I need to call some people and tell them where I am.”


End file.
